To the question of what would happen if TE was instead of SoD, I will answer: in my opinion, it would be a wasteland. No forums, no players, almost nothing at all.
They would be somewhere in between the players of the fourth and second versions (no offense).

Why? Because SoD is imperfect. Just as the person who is trying to outsmart a robot in logical thinking is imperfect.

So, no more drinks for Nagan :D.

Don't let him hang out with the Starcrafters, Quake players, and others, or they'll beat him up :smile33:

If Heroes had 9 balanced castles from the beginning, a bug-free and balanced map generator, convenient controls, chess clocks, simultaneous turns, replays, short game time (3-5 hours), etc., it wouldn't be a wasteland, but a recognized esports discipline, with regular championships, including international ones. And who knows, maybe it would even lead to WCG.

Moreover, if TE in its modern form had been promoted around the year 2000, when the wave of people with open minds had not yet subsided, it would have been roughly the same.

There was even a real example - the Chaos patch was made based on WoG, and the balance of SoD was adjusted, and this did not cause any outcry. But modern... hmm... "partisans" are even complaining about Light, which has the same balance as SoD.

I once wandered into a group of Warcraft 2 fans. I was surprised and asked why they weren't playing Starcraft. I heard arguments similar to those I hear from SoD fans - well, it's a classic, everything is simple, there are no wild amounts of features, they like the imbalance, and in general, they like to give orders to each unit, like micro-control, not like in Star, where you select a group and send it through an attack.

When I pointed out that there is no less precise micro-control in Star, and any top Starcraft player, after a short training, would crush them in Warcraft 2 purely due to the speed and accuracy of micro-control, I received the objection "let him try." And that's when I left those elusive Joes.